Forests Minister Steve Thomson says the Liberal government is taking another shot at giving forest companies more rights to control British Columbia’s public forest lands, but he rejects criticism that the plan would privatize provincial forests.
The move could dramatically change the way public forests are managed by granting lumber companies tenure rights, or logging rights, to large pieces of land. Companies are currently allotted timber harvest rights on a specified numbers of trees.
Under volume-based licenses, companies are allowed to log specified amounts of timber within a general area. Area-based licenses give companies exclusive rights to log specific areas, but with specific obligations related to re-planting and forest management.
In either case, the amount of timber each company gets to cut is about the same.
The idea of converting volume-based licenses came from a special all-party committee of the legislature that was called in 2012 to address the loss of timber inventories to the mountain pine beetle infestation in BC’s Interior.
Forester Jim Snetsinger will lead the public engagement process and file a report to the provincial government by the end of June.
